30 July 2006

Real Location # 2 - Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!)

The bulk of Pedro Almodovar's film takes place in and around Madrid but the final scenes take place at a wonderful abandoned village called Granadilla (Caceres) near to Hervas, Extremadura where I spent the first week of my two week Spanish trip earlier this month.

The village itself was abandoned to make way for a reservoir which it seems in the end didn't actually rise that close to the village. The village is walled and contains some completely abandoned buildings, a church, town hall and a fort next to the main entrance. When I visited in the first week in July school children from all over Spain were learning farming methods, crafts and preservation of this historical site.

In the film Antonio Banderas searches for his parents and the house where he grew up and is seen wandering through the abandoned streets of Granadilla and looking out from the fort over the views of the reservoir.

My sincere thanks to Olga Tellez for organising this excursion. We spent our entire morning at this amazing village, walking around and talking to some of the students.

IMDB entry for Atame!, link.A website with some additional views of Granadilla, including an ariel photograph on the home page, link.Granadilla is in the region of Extremadura. Wikipedia link for Extremadura, link.